Turnover wrote:I've been wondering how a charger can be down at a Nissan dealer when the expertise to maintain and repair cars is (presumably there.) With all the car electronics and other subsystems how can a charger be more complex and difficult to maintain? Must be more to this. Whatever is wrong needs to be fixed as it sticks out like a sore thumb to us Leaf owners.

Expertise and repairing cars doesn't automatically mean they know how to can and repair a DC FC. And, they might not have the parts in stock. At least they can probably clean some of the filters on the Nissan-branded DC FCs (viewtopic.php?p=383952#p383952).

At Nissan's own research center in Sunnyvale, CA (http://api.plugshare.com/view/location/13491, we're not talking about a business that Nissan corporate doesn't own: dealerships) their DC FC is sometimes down for weeks at a time. I was physically there on Friday 12/12/14 and saw the out of order sign on it w/the power off.

Agree the reliability and redundancy of the growing chademo network leaves something to be desired..I suspect when we see chademo capable cars with 150+ miles of range we'll also start seeing clusters of chargers deployed to link distant destination. Such a network just wasn't worthwhile for a vehicle with 70-80 miles of range.

+1I drove to Portland to Seattle in September. All DCQC worked as advertised and they were available when I got there (luck?). The one in Centralia tends to be busy, I was told by a driver that was charging on L2. Nice guy, he did not use the DCQC while at lunch at Wendy's because he did not needed!!!

2011 SLe 06/17/11 Over 76000 miles 71%SOH 15.7kWh2015 SV 09/02/14, Over 39000 miles soon to be returned for a Honda Clarity 5.7kW DC System

GregH wrote:Agree the reliability and redundancy of the growing chademo network leaves something to be desired..I suspect when we see chademo capable cars with 150+ miles of range we'll also start seeing clusters of chargers deployed to link distant destination. Such a network just wasn't worthwhile for a vehicle with 70-80 miles of range.

I don't think it would be very difficult to have chademo chargers at every gas station along the interstates or in general?

GregH wrote:Agree the reliability and redundancy of the growing chademo network leaves something to be desired..I suspect when we see chademo capable cars with 150+ miles of range we'll also start seeing clusters of chargers deployed to link distant destination. Such a network just wasn't worthwhile for a vehicle with 70-80 miles of range.

I don't think it would be very difficult to have chademo chargers at every gas station along the interstates or in general?

Would the people paying to have them installed be able to make a profit? That's really the only question. As long as the likely answer is no, only a true believer in an EV future would finance it. The only likely candidate would be the EV makers, but only those who plan to actually profit. The compliance vehicle manufacturers have no incentive.

bigrob90 wrote:Would the people paying to have them installed be able to make a profit? That's really the only question. As long as the likely answer is no, only a true believer in an EV future would finance it. The only likely candidate would be the EV makers, but only those who plan to actually profit. The compliance vehicle manufacturers have no incentive.

This is my take on it also. That's why I don't get the comparison of a random Chademo network to the deliberately designed Supercharger network. Who is going to pay for, install, and maintain the thousands of Chademo chargers in the wide open spaces to connect cities? Government? Nissan? They won't be remotely self-supporting from user charges.

This gets back to a difference between EVs and ICE cars: the vast majority of EVs do most of their charging at home/work. Almost every ICE car buys gas/diesel at a gas station. Adding Chademo chargers to gas stations is hardly going to be a viable revenue source for the stations in most places. It would need to be heavily subsidized. But by whom?

The charging problem will largely begin solve itself one way or another once the fleet of EVs reaches a critical mass. Fortunately, the fleet continues to grow without any substantial charging infrastructure already being widely in place.